Basant Soren, the younger brother of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren today took oath as a minister in the Chamapi Soren Government. A total of eight ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor CP Radhakrishnan at Raj Bhawan on Friday.
Out of the eight ministers, who took oath today there are two new faces, Basant Soren and Deepak Birua, while former minister Joba Manjhi has been dropped by the JMM in the new Cabinet.
From the JMM quota Mithilesh Thakur, Hafizul Hassan, Baby Devi, Basant Soren and Deepak Birua were sworn in as Ministers, while from the Congress’ side Banna Gupta, Dr Rameshwar Oraon and Badal were administered oath of office.
Congress Legislature Party leader Alamgir Alam and RJD legislator Satyanand Bhokta had taken oath with Chief Minister Champai Soren on February 02.
After the resignation and arrest of Hemant Soren on January 31, the JMM, Congress, and RJD coalition formed a government led by JMM’s Champai Soren on February 2, where one MLA each of Congress and RJD took oath along with the Chief Minister.
The Jharkhand Cabinet can have a maximum of 12 ministerial berths including the Chief Minister, out of which 11 were filled and one remained vacant during the four-year tenure of Hemant Soren. The Champai Soren government has also maintained the same numbers.
Notably, JMM MLA Baidynath Ram’s name was included in the list of new ministers for the swearing-in ceremony. His name was even mentioned in the warrant issued by the Raj Bahwan, but due to Congress legislators’ protest, he was dropped at the last minute.
Congress, which has 17 legislators in the House, is facing the ire of its legislators as they were expecting a change in the ministerial berths this time. Congress MLAs Deepika Pandey Singh, Pradeep Yadav, Irfan Ansari and many other legislators were hoping for ministerial positions, but the high command did not approve any new names this time. This resulted in a dissent among the MLAs, who locked themselves in their rooms at the Ranchi Circuit house.
Finally, State Congress in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir and Rajesh Thakur had to toil for hours to convince the legislators to come to the swearing-in ceremony.
The State BJP also attacked the ruling alliance for dropping a Scheduled Caste MLA Baidyanath Ram at the last minute. The BJP said that the INDI Alliance has shown its true face by dropping the lone SC face from the Cabinet.
The party said that the alliance only speaks about being a well-wisher of the SC community to get votes, but its true face was revealed when it dropped the SC legislator
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